Wellington leaders look to future

Group brainstorms ways to maintain village’s standing.

WELLINGTON — Wellington is already known for its A-rated schools, but leaders think doubling down on education will be one of the ways to keep the village great in the future.

The Village Council and high-ranking staff members recently sat down for a series of “directions” meetings to talk about the future of Wellington, including sprucing up the village’s plazas and parks and continuing to brand it as a great place to live.

But the conversations kept coming back to education and schools as the main building block.

“Excellent schools lead to excellent neighborhoods and higher property values, and we are invested in that,” Vice Mayor John McGovern said.

The main contribution from the village to its 11 public schools has been the Keely Spinelli grant — a nearly $300,000 yearly subsidy named for a popular former principal who died in 2008 after a five-year battle with ovarian cancer.

The money is evenly distributed among the schools with a goal of improving the reading and math scores of the bottom 25 percent of students. The schools usually use it for tutoring or other lessons outside the classroom.

Officials are now kicking around the idea of a “Keely Spinelli 2.0” program, which would make additional money available to schools that have extra needs.

These grants would be more open-ended, allowing school administrators to customize programs.

“Let them be creative,” Assistant Village Manager Jim Barnes said. “They’re the educators. They are the ones who know what their students need.”

Another issue stressed at the meeting was improving some of the aging shopping centers like the former Winn-Dixie plaza on the north side of Greenview Shores Boulevard and Wellington Trace.

Without major improvements, these types of centers only last about 30 to 35 years in Florida and some are reaching that point, Village Manager Paul Schofield said.

Council members said they would give incentives to spruce up the plazas, but Barnes said many owners want the right to build more stores or insert housing.

Shopping centers that are doing well and are up to code have a big draw like a Publix, Barnes said.

“The major anchor in this location was Winn-Dixie, (which) didn’t make it,” he said.

Going forward, Wellington also expects to have to ramp up its marketing efforts, potentially bringing in some outside help.

Village officials have let the name Wellington stand for itself, but with new homes coming